25th July 2008 Archive

More than two weeks after security researchers warned of a critical defect in the net's address lookup system, some of the world's biggest internet service providers - including AT&T, Time Warner and Bell Canada - have yet to install a patch inoculating their subscribers against attacks, according to an informal survey of Register readers.

Thousands - or to be more precise, six thousands - of lucky alleged infringers a week are to be informed of the error of their ways, according to the terms of the deal struck this week between the British government and six major ISPs. They will in the first instance be "informed when their accounts are being used unlawfully to share copyright material and pointed towards legal alternatives."

The UK moved one step closer to online ID for all last week as the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) decided to give accreditation to NetIDme’s age verification software. But for once this may be not cause for complete doom and gloom. Also added to the list are GB Group (with their URU product) and 192.com.

A British couple has lost the battle to keep the narnia.mobi domain name which they claimed was only registered so that their son could have a Narnia-related email address. The address will transfer to a company representing CS Lewis's estate.

The British government has been accused by Greenpeace of trying to strangle development of renewable power in Europe, and in particular in the UK. Greenpeace say they have obtained draft documents from negotiations in Brussels, which amount to a 'smoking gun' exposing the UK's anti-renewables agenda.

I've given up buying DVDs, though I haven't stopped watching them. Quite the reverse - I'm watching more movies and TV series than ever before. Before you suggest it, I'm not downloading anything either.

Reports have told us that mobile phones don’t increase the risk of brain cancer, others have stated the opposite. However, one doctor has issued a warning that mobile phone use should be limited, based on the findings of an unpublished medical study.

A "triple crunch" of financial crisis, climate change and soaring oil prices threatens the world with a new Great Depression so, 'drawing inspiration from FDR' the Green New Deal Group proposes "a modernised version" of the solution. FDR himself being unhappily unavailable, we have the newly-formed group and its eponymous report instead. And frankly, it goes downhill from there.

Capgemini is paying €255m for a public sector applications division, Business Application Services BV, from Getronics PinkRoccade. BAS BV employs 2,200 people and turned over €300m in 2007. It makes 40 per cent of its revenues from the Dutch public sector. The deal is subject to the usual regulatory issues and needs to be approved by the firm's Workers Council.

The new head of the US Air Force - replacing an officer who was fired at least in part for dragging his feet on unmanned air operations - has hinted that the service may relax its rule that drone aircraft must be flown by fully qualified military pilots.

Rejoice! "Three strikes and you're out" is dead in the UK. Music file sharers will no longer face the threat of seeing the household broadband connection severed. The plague that is currently endemic in France won't be jumping the English Channel.

Intel is ready to charge once more unto the breach of system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices, this time with a new line of embedded processors based on the same instruction set used in all its desktop and mobile products.

UK reseller Morse will take a one-off charge of up to £4.5m to slash costs this year, it told the stock market today. Executive chairman Kevin Loosemore said further details of the cuts, which will begin immediately, will be revealed with the firm's preliminary results on 9 September. The cuts follow the departure of CEO Kevin Alcock early this month. A restructuring programme was launched to improve margins. ®

Blighty’s cons soon really will be doing hard time. Because the Prison Service has issued a directive banning 18 certificate videogames from prisons, and has also pledged to reform console use inside jails.

Like Micro, like Hoo. Following in the footsteps of Steve Ballmer and company, Yahoo! plans to destroy the DRM servers propping up all those people misguided enough to purchase tunes from its failed music store.